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…’Complete B-Sides: 1988-97′ has been remastered from the original analogue tapes and includes an additional six live tracks. The first two – ‘Planet of Sound’ and ‘Tame’ were originally released on the 1991 ‘Alec Empire’ single and were recorded at the band’s 26 July 1991 Brixton Academy gig. The remaining four bonus live tracks – ‘Debaser’, ‘The Holiday Song’. ‘Cactus’ and ‘Nimrod’s Son’ – were first released on the 1989 promo Pixies Live and were recorded on 10 August 1989 at Cabaret Metro, Chicago.
…Originally released on CD in 2001, while the band were almost a decade into a hiatus, Complete B-Sides contained 19 B-sides from the band’s classic 4AD era (1988-1991) and featured beloved Pixies tracks including “Wave of…

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Rodney Crowell’s string of 2001’s Houston Kid, 2003’s Fate’s Right Hand, and 2005’s The Outsider, a trilogy of sorts, are as strong as any three consecutive albums in Americana. He attempted to continue this momentum in 2005 by going into the studio with the same band, including Steuart Smith on guitar, and co-producing with Crowell, along with Benmont Tench joining on organ. He was attempting to vary the script somewhat, but was uncomfortable with the results, feeling it was too similar to the trilogy aesthetic. Twenty years later, he found the album in his vaults and felt it was the right time to release it.
So, we have Then Again with a couple of new, updated touches. To these ears, the album is more introspective, arguably more deeply…

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The iconic backdrop of California – from the Hollywood hills to its gnarly mountain trails – has always been a particularly evocative source of inspiration when it comes to art, so it’s not all too surprising to learn that Joe Newman, frontman of alt-J, felt so drawn to its confines for his first solo foray. His first venture proper outside of the band since their formation almost 20 years ago now – under the moniker of his former screenname JJerome87 – The Canyon is a bold offering that comes dripping with a sultry California spirit. Opener ‘Mr Alligator’ swaggers to life in a bluesy manner, before ‘Green Velvet’ hazily saunters in, bathed in the kind of enveloping warmth that only Los Angeles could help conjure up. An assembled cast of session musicians and…

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If a title’s purpose is to illuminate an album’s themes, then The Ground Above, Beth Orton’s ninth, suggests she’s been buried alive. Listening, too, for the first time, one fears that’s exactly what’s happened. Once that gentle, languid voice ached with a mere crack on “She Cries Your Name”, and that crack, furthermore, let light in. Three decades later, it trembles and breaks on her new record’s earliest notes. Indeed, this title track initially appears so privately visceral one worries about intruding. Her moans and groans are singular, guttural, even primal, as though they’ve discovered a life of their own.
Arguably, however, Orton has rarely sounded more like herself; and deciphering these lines confirms she’s making peace with her demons,…

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After their fluke hit “Pepper”, off 1996’s Electric Larryland, Butthole Surfers label, Capitol Records, wanted a follow-up. The band submitted After the Astronaut, but at the eleventh hour (with promotional copies already out), the label killed the album. Then, in 2001, on a new label, a revamped version titled Weird Revolution appeared. It went nowhere, and that was pretty much the end of the Butthole Surfers. Now the original record, shelved years ago, arrives.
While fans have had lo-fi copies for decades, this new release clearly displays what the Surfers were going for in 1998. Gone are the cataclysmic punk freakouts of their early years, and in their place are remedial drum loops and pedestrian synth-laden ambient space outs.

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Here comes the science bit, concentrate: all you space nerds out there will be well aware that ‘the Wow! signal’ was of course a narrowband radio signal detected by Ohio State University’s Big Ear radio telescope back in August 1977. So intense was its strength and so mysterious was its frequency that it was chalked up to being from bloody aliens. Astounded astronomer Jerry R. Ehman simply scribbled Wow! on the initial report.
Ever since their gothic sci-fi masterpiece 2001 album Origin of Symmetry, Muse have been largely preoccupied with matters of life up there and who’s really pulling the strings down here. For frontman Matt Bellamy, his obsession with the stars, conspiracy and the great beyond seems to come from an undying need for answers,…

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Nowhere Sessions was recorded in a secluded family cabin deep in the heart of Iceland, far from the bustle and roar. According to Snorri Hallgrímsson, the old cabin is “not only a retreat but a place of memory and continuity.”
The album is as much about meaningful solitude as it is about solidarity, although the two are often complementary.
The lead single “I Am Weary, Don’t Let Me Rest” is indicative of the album’s intimacy. The video begins with an image of the composer’s hand poised above the piano before the camera expands to reveal a home filled with musicians, exuding an incredible warmth. The strings ease in like clouds covering the horizon. Soon there is a second pair of hands at the ivories, a statement of…

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Every once in a while, a recording surfaces to remind us of the value of unfettered creativity, spontaneity, and experimentalism, Open Space (2026) a model example. Comprising ten improvisations performed by clarinetist Fie Schouten, cellist Vincent Courtois, drummer Sofia Borges, and text reciter Pierre Baux, the piece was inspired by Georges Perec’s 1974 book Espèces d’espaces (“Species of Spaces”). While the parts were collectively generated in the moment, they’re not without some structural foundation as the four created a musical design that follows the chronology of the book. Texts recited by Baux aren’t spun out of thin air but are instead fragments taken from Perec’s original.
The compositions are credited equally to all…

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Were the Watchtowers is the final recorded work of the Sadies singer-guitarist Dallas Good, completed before his unexpected passing in February 2022. It’s jointly credited to Good and Richard Reed Parry (of Arcade Fire).
…The 9-song album features guest appearances from Margaret Atwood and Neko Case, while other contributors include Kurt Vile, Yo La Tengo, Jim Jarmusch, John Doe, Jon Spencer, Scott McCaughey and Gary Louris. Closing cut “Not in the World” features the aforementioned fan choir, with more than 500 contributors.
…Parry explained that Were the Watchtowers was written and recorded over the course of a decade, and further explores the “cosmic, psychedelic Americana sounds” heard when Parry…

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Five nights later, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band returned to the World’s Most Famous Arena with their fans’ interests piqued. A fantastic performance was anticipated for their New York finale, especially after increasingly stellar showings in Elmont and Brooklyn, and MSG night one in-between, but there was also hope that this second night in the same venue may bring a setlist change or two, as it had in Inglewood’s Kia Forum in early April. That hope would ultimately be in vain as Springsteen and the E Street Band stayed on course with what they’ve been playing since that second night in Inglewood, meaning they eclipsed the five straight identical setlists between April 7th to April 23rd with this sixth successive show of ‘the same’. That’s something that hadn’t…

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While the Beatles were whipping up the initial storms of mania in the U.K., bands in America weren’t just sitting around waiting for something to happen. Contrary to popular belief there were a few burgeoning rock & roll scenes cooking along quite nicely in the colonies. On the West Coast, surf music was riding the waves, while on college campuses across the country bands were cranking out a raucous take on rock & roll mixed with R&B in a style later known as frat rock. The early rumblings of garage rock were being heard in small towns and cities too, creating a vibrant sound that even the mighty Beatles couldn’t wipe out. Cherry Red’s 2026 compilation Steppin’ Out: The Roots of Garage Rock 1963-1965 digs into these strands of American music, unearthing…

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Whether some genres or sub-genres are supposed to go together or not is often a moot point, and in more cases or not, depends on whether a band or an artist have the ability and inventiveness to be able to make a musical combination that actually works.
Taking that route on their debut album, The Devil You Know, is New York quintet St. Divine. As you sift through the eleven tracks here, you can encounter quite a few things this band likes, garage rock, punk art rock, Americana, and they sneak quite a few things they sneak in, sometimes in a single song.
Such an approach is always a sort of a double-edged sword – it can turn into a chaotic mess, or it could be inspired and inventive…

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Kristina Stykos is a songwriter, musician, recording engineer and producer who has been a torchbearer for the music of the Green Mountain State since the ’80s. Her Pepperbox Studio is tucked away off-grid and off the beaten track at the base of Mount Abraham in Lincoln, Vermont. Stykos has released six albums under her own name, along with a collaboration with the recently deceased Montanan pianist and composer Philip Aaberg. Her Thunder Ridge Records roster, whilst not full of household names, has showcased the skills of many talented Vermonters. Stykos is also one half of The Cousins Project, the other being Steve Mayone. Up until twenty years ago, they were unaware of each other’s existence. All that changed when Stykos attended a Bow Thayer and…

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This Is My Blood finds Jozef van Wissem deepening his long project of dragging the lute out of its historical frame and into the present, this time with a gaze fixed on deserted, contemporary landscapes. The album is literally framed by two “cinematic hypnotist slide lute” pieces, improvised for Maquina, a psychedelic road‑movie shot in the Colorado desert by filmmaker Joaquim Pujol.
Rather than moving through tidy song forms, these bookending tracks feel like mirages: scorched, hallucinatory reveries that “seem to shimmer in the heat of abandoned horizons rather than unfold in time,” as the press material puts it. Long, bent notes, slowly evolving figures and smeared overtones turn the slide‑treated lute into a kind of broken lap‑steel choir; the music…

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Back in the mid-’60s, when Vanguard Records were all the rage on the folk scene, it was practically an honour to get a chance to record a solo folk/singer-songwriter album where it was just the artist, her/his voice, songs and a single instrument or two.
These days such albums have become a sort of rare occasion, with the artist being too courageous or truly able with something to say to attempt something like that. Essentially, you would really have to be a good musical storyteller to pull it off and come up with a consistent, substantial album of pure solo music.
After 10 years of complete silence, folk artist Shannon Jae Ridout is attempting something like that with her new album Two Busted…

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Normally found fronting his trio, leading Spanish pianist Daniel Garcia moves to a solo format for The Hero’s Journey. Composed during a period of family illness and bereavement, it is perhaps surprising that the album is not dark in any way.
Instead Garcia maintains focus on the concept of the hero, as he explains: “For a long time I have been attracted by the hero figure — I’m not thinking at all about some invincible movie superhero, but rather the idea of a person constantly facing new challenges who needs to overcome them.”
The Hero’s Journey consists of 13 original compositions conceived as a single continuous experience, guiding the listener through a shifting landscape of moods and atmospheres.

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Little North have built a distinct voice with their blend of Nordic lyricism, cinematic depth, and vibrant energy. Crossing Currents marks a pivotal chapter in their journey. In November 2023, the trio traveled to New York, bringing new compositions and their Nordic sound, and they recorded the album with two outstanding voices of today’s jazz scene: vibraphonist Joel Ross and saxophonist Hannes Bennich.
The result is a compelling meeting of musical worlds, where Copenhagen, Malmö and New York merge into one fluid, expressive language. Expanding on the trio’s signature interplay and collective storytelling, the album unfolds with openness, energy and a strong sense of transatlantic dialogue.

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Most labels find their artists in the most banal ways — at showcase festivals, on TikTok, through friends, etc. Juergen Vonbank travelled halfway around the world to discover an artist who lived on yet another side of the world: During a tour stop in Ecuador, the DJ and Night Defined owner was introduced to the music of Mongolian artist Ts Bayandalai, and immediately fell in love. It took a while to overcome geographic borders and language barriers, but now Wind of Oirat underscores that all the effort was worth it: Following up on 2020’s Kimel EP, the artist’s first album is a fully-formed statement of intent.
Bayandalai takes some cues from Mongolian folklore, but as track titles such as ‘404 Not Found’ and ‘Bedwetting’ prove, he doesn’t…

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